#38 - Better In-Law Relationships & Family Dynamics with Ro Elliott (2)

This episode is full of wisdom about family dynamics, and specifically about in-laws.

What happens when the house goes quiet and the role that defined you for decades suddenly ends? Roe joins us to share how a 27-year homeschooling season gave way to big questions about what to do next.

Ro found her passion in the Enneagram, both with personal discovery and helping others through coaching.  When she discovered she’s a Type Two, her history of overhelping, blurred lines, and “being needed” finally made sense. From there, the smallest shifts—asking “Is this mine to do?” and waiting to be invited—changed the tone of her marriage and reshaped her relationships with her kids and their spouses.

We dig into real family dynamics: an Eight daughter who values autonomy, a house full of Nines who prefer calm, and in-laws who bring new cultures into a fixed family system. Ro unpacks how to navigate traditions, expectations, and control without hardening your heart. 

I loved hearing Ro's stories of how different Enneagram types interacted in her home. She also has done amazing work to have beautiful relationships with her daughter-in-laws and son-in-law. Great episode for gaining wisdom about family dynamics.

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Chapters

• 0:52 Meet Roe: Story And Credentials
• 4:00 Homeschooling Years And Identity
• 6:59 Empty Nest Shock And Rebuilding
• 8:45 Discovering The Enneagram Two
• 11:20 Boundaries, Need, And Being Wanted
• 13:40 Parenting Eights And Respecting Wiring
• 15:56 In-Laws, Family Culture, And Flexibility
• 19:25 Holidays, Traditions, And Letting Go
• 23:14 Typing Later In Life And Shadow Sides
• 27:46 Stress Moves And Compassionate Repair
• 31:28 Practical Noticing For Types Seven And Nine
• 35:37 Generational Impact And Closing Insights

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:27

Ro Elia is here with me today on the Towards Eden podcast. And Roe is a new friend of mine. We met through Krista Harden's Ennegram and Marriage Coaches group. She has a couple certifications I want to tell you about. She studied at the Allender Center and earned a narrative-focused trauma care certification. And she also has the same two Ennegram coaching certifications that I have. One is Ennegram and Marriage through Krista Harden. And the other one is your Ennegram coach, which is Beth McCord's certification. And Ro has a really unique story that she's going to share with us today. So I am so happy that you're here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07

Oh, thank you for inviting me. I always feel honored when people invite me into. I figure it's like a home. It's your podcast's sacred place. So I appreciate the honor of getting to be here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20

Aw, thank you. Let's start with why don't you introduce what you want people to know about you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:26

Okay. So again, my name is Roe Elliott. A lot of people ask me, Roe is short for Roseanne, but I go by Roe. Um, I've been married to my husband. We've known each other since we were 15, but we've been married, I know, 43 years. Yes, almost 44. Um, I am 67, closing in on 68, and I think telling my age is important to my story. Um, we have five adult children. Our oldest is 42, and we have a 13-year age gap. So we had three children and then two trailers, and the youngest one is 29. So we have two bookend girls, three in the middle, and four of the five are married, which has given us 10 grandbabies so far. And um, we just had a new one just this past summer, and it's awesome. And our grandparent name was given to us. Um, I am Lolly, and my husband is pop, and we are Lollipop. So I told our kids, you name me Lollipop, your children will get lollipops every time they leave. And it's the one time I want to be able to trump whatever the parents do on eating, is they get a lollipop. So they know that they come in wanting them and leaving, wanting them. So it's it's really, really sweet. So part of the story is having five kids and being of my age. Um, I was a full-time stay-at-home mom, but I also doubled that down with being a homeschooling mom. And when I started homeschooling, it you didn't tell people. You had to keep stay inside until you heard the school bus because the true officer could get called on you. Like when my daughter went to get her eyes checked when she was eight. I didn't wear glasses, my husband didn't wear glasses, so we never thought our kid, you know, young would have eye problems. And she was doing the eye chart and she didn't make it very far down. And he's the pediatrician said, Does she not complain of not seeing the um board? And I said, No, she never has, which was true.

SPEAKER_02: 4:00

So there was no board.

SPEAKER_00: 4:02

There was no board. So um she did marvel when she put her glasses on that trees had individual leaves and not big blobs. So she didn't need them. I know I felt really bad. Um, but especially those early years, it was all consuming because I didn't have anybody really ahead of me. I had some people with me, but it wasn't like, oh, this is what you do and this is how you do it. And so it I really homeschooled afraid a lot, um, and really never planned on past elementary school. Um, I wasn't a star student in school, so I never thought I could homeschool all the way through. And my oldest daughter didn't want to go to school. She graduated high school at 17, started nursing school, and I was like, hmm, I guess I can do this. But because of the age gap, I spent 27 years doing that.

SPEAKER_02: 5:08

Okay, so you homeschooled them all up through high school, all the way through high school.

SPEAKER_00: 5:12

They left my kitchen table and went to college. All of them went to college. Three of the four of the five have postgraduate work, and so it worked, and I'm thankful for the grace of God in it. I can tell you that. Lots of prayers, lots of tears, but he met us in it, and um homeschooling's not for any everybody, but if you feel called to do it, it's worth the pain and the struggle, I can say. So when I finished, and so because of the age gap, I was 58 when my last child left to go to college. And I look back now and I laugh. I should have thought about this sooner, but I had never done anything outside the house. I taught school before I got married and had children, but then I stayed home all those years. And I was lost. I was literally lost. I did not know who I was. People were like, what are you gonna do? Oh, we ask really bad questions when people transition. We ask them to kids going to high school, to college, to after college, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? And I didn't realize what a bad question that was until I felt the pressures, like, I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Um, and that just started me on a journey. And I do remember one time I was standing in my kitchen and just felt that gentle whisper of, you're not gonna do with your child grandchildren what you did with your children. And I think at that time I had two or three grandchildren, and I was like, what was wrong with that? And my plan and what I would have done, because it's what I did with my adult children, I put all my eggs in one basket, and all those little eggs flew away, and you end up with the empty basket, but I didn't have any other baskets, it was empty, and I didn't understand it at the time. I the first step I did was go out to the Allender Center, and that was very man, that's intense, it's awesome. Dan Allender is in a league of his own. Um, it brought a lot of healing to me, but I didn't have any structure to come back and do the story work, and I just didn't do anything outside of myself. And I had done a little selling and I love that because I love health. But at this point I was 62, and I told my husband, it was like, I don't love this. This doesn't light me up inside. And I said, My runway is pretty short, and I feel like there's something else for me to do, but I don't know what it is. He asked me, What about the Ennegram? You light up every time you talk about it. Da-da-da. But one fact before that was I had heard about the Enneagram. You cannot live in Nashville, Tennessee for years and no very saturated Enneagram place. So before this, my daughter sent the test into the family. We have family text, and she said, let's everybody take the test. I was familiar with any gram, but I'd never taken the test. And so I'm like, Oh, I wonder if I'm an eight. And my daughter, whose firstborn daughter who's an eight, was like, oh my gosh, mom, you're not eight. So took the test, started reading about the numbers, and when I got to Ennegram 2, it was like, oh, my mind was blown. It's like it came inside me, it read me, it made so much sense of my past. It was like, oh, that's why I got tripped up there and tripped up there and tripped up there. And what I love about the Ennegram that I think is a little bit different than other things, is it showed me what health could look like, it showed me what a path forward looked like as a healthy Enneagram, too.

SPEAKER_02: 9:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 9:51

So now when God was saying you're not going to do with your grandchildren what you do with your children, it was boundaries, it was overhelping. And what I realized was I would have been sitting there waiting to be needed because to me, if I'm needed, it tells me I'm wanted. And honestly, to step back from that was scary for me because I thought, do my kids want me if I'm not serving them all the time? Do my kids want me if I'm not on beck on the beck and call for grandchildren? Do they and I didn't know that's not an indictment on my children? That was my own insecurity. But it I knew God was protecting my family because twos want to give and want to help, and it's our nature, and if we don't diversify that, that's not helpful. So I feel like in many, many ways, the any gram through God actually came and saved me, saved me from this part of life being very miserable and unhappy, and staying needy and needing other people to tell me that I'm loved. Other people in my head, I know I'm loved by God. But twos are so connected to that need for other people to tell us that we are needed and wanted and that they see us, and it just brought a lot of healing to me in that.

SPEAKER_02: 12:31

So then what's the flip side of that that you see in your life, Row, of the healthy side of two? And how are you able to lean into the the healthy version of Enneagram too in this stage of life?

SPEAKER_00: 12:47

Well, I think twos feel and do. It's almost like one movement. Feel do. Feel do. Uh, I'll do that. I can help you with that. I can do that. And what the Ennegram helped me do, and Suzanne Sibyl being an Ennegram too, I love being taught by the master who's a you. Um, what she said, she started asking herself a question. Is this mine to do? And probably more importantly, have they asked me? And it just slowed me down enough to put a pause, especially when it comes to my children. But is so I have a daughter, she's at Enneagram eight, and what I can say, learning the Enneagram and understanding her better, I could just say, I wish this was in my family when my children were growing up. Learn your Enneagram and start studying your student, your your kids is almost students, and see, just start watching, and by the time they're teenagers, they'll have a grasp and you'll have a grasp. It would have been helpful because my firstborn daughter is an eight. And she laughs, she goes, Oh my gosh, God had a sense of humor to give a strong eight a two mom. So she basically hadn't needed me since she was three, and she would have boundaried me pretty easily, but she would have been healthy in those boundaries and it would hurt my feelings. Her quote unquote not needing me. It doesn't mean she doesn't want me, but she doesn't need me, um, would have really hurt my feelings. But now I understand the way she's wired that she she just has that autonomy. She lets you in when she's ready, but if she's not ready, she's not letting very many people into that inner circle. And as a mom who wants to be there all the time, um it's helped me understand her, respect the way she is. I think where it really helped, helped, helped, helped is so the next three are sons. So the next three have beautiful wives, and I have three daughter-in-laws that I did not raise. So it's not like I understand them. And I would say that probably has saved a lot of those relationships because I've learned how to move in respect to them, not them moving at my pace, according to the way my family does things. Um you just always hear nightmares of mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws. And I had a beautiful mother-in-law, and I wanted to be like her, and she was just positive and cheered me on, and I was a hot mess when we got married, and I I joked that she lied really well because she just made me feel like I was great and I was a mess. So I wanted to do that for my granddaughters. The Enneagram has helped me do that.

SPEAKER_02: 16:36

So, so we've got the layer of your your daughter-in-laws being from different families, right? So there's a totally different family culture coming in, and then we have the layer of all the different Ennegram types, right? Like that could get so complicated in every in-law relationship.

SPEAKER_00: 16:58

Yes. And so larger families, the bigger the risk.

unknown: 17:03

Yeah, the more people.

SPEAKER_00: 17:05

And what I realized in all families are dysfunctional to some level, because we're all human. Kids can reflect and say, Yeah, I had a really good upbringing, and this was good, and this was positive. But there were levels of dysfunction because there has to be, because we're human. Um, and I think if you get that really young, yeah, it's it takes a lot of the pressure off. But I think every family unit is a fixed system, and all it's like a mobile, and everybody's spinning around the way it goes. Everybody knows the patterns, everybody knows the hop buttons, everybody knows. And then this foreign entity enters and it like knocks it off of balance, and all of a sudden it's like, whoa, whoa. And so I think of my son-in-law who comes into our family. We're nothing like his family, we're big, loud, whatever, and his family wasn't. And so he starts asking questions why do you do that? And what's this? And so my daughter has a new set of eyes into his family, and so just take Enneagram out. Marriage, it upsets this the homostasis of the of the group that what has been normal and accepted and right.

SPEAKER_02: 18:36

Was that son-in-law the first one to marry into your family?

SPEAKER_00: 18:40

Son-in-law, first one, Ennegram one to an Ennegram eight. And he's he's awesome. Um, but it's helped me even with him to kind of know how to communicate and how to um communicate with the one with not fate positively, but just to assure them you see them and they're they're good and they're doing good things, they're doing good things for the family because they question themselves all the time. Um, but with the daughter-in-laws and a mother-in-law, I think it's fragile. And I'm just gonna say, I think it's on the mother-in-law to build that relationship. I hear a lot of people, a lot of mother-in-law's go, my daughter-in-law, and my son never thought this way until he married her. Like her doesn't even have a name sometimes. And I thought, yeah, because now he's got another voice that is asking questions. But if you flip it on the other side, her parents are probably seeing things in his life that are changing in her life that are changing too. And if you're not seeing that, that's part of the leaving and cleaving. And we have got to allow our children to do that. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02: 20:15

Can you walk me through your uh briefly your kids and their spouses and the numbers, like the type combinations that you've got going on in your family?

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Yes. Firstborn daughter, she's an eight, he's a one. The next couple, he's a nine, she's a four. Next one, my son. That that was a son that's a nine, daughter-in-law's a four, son that's an eight, daughter-in-law nine, son that's a one, daughter-in-law that's a nine, and my daughter who's a six, is not married. I'm a two, and my husband's a nine. And now we understand why we drove our enneigram eight daughter crazy. She's like, Somebody make a decision, it doesn't matter. Um, we laugh now, it's just very funny. It's like, ah, we really did frustrate her, and um rightfully so at times. Yeah, so lots of combinations. So you also see not only is the blending mother-in-law to daughter-in-law's to son-in-laws, you now have, and I'll say, sister-in-laws to sister-in-law, a lot of times it's a little bumpier than brothers-in-laws to brothers. Like Jared, he was one of the boys, you know, he was thrilled. He had brothers that he never had. Not that my daughter-in-laws didn't get along with the sisters, it wasn't as you know, there's a protectiveness, a little bit like a mom of a sister to a to a younger brother or even an older brother, and the Enneagram has really been helpful, especially since our firstborn daughter's an eight, and we have a house full of nines. Oh, yeah, and and I'll tell you one story where um, so our kitchen concept is open, and I'm in the kitchen, I'm washing dishes, and I'm seeing a my daughter and a her sister-in-law talking, and I'm I know my daughter well enough. She thinks she knocked that level down to about a five. But my daughter, this nine is maybe the sweetest, kindest person. And I'm watching this and I'm going, this is not going well. This is not going well. And there would have been a time as a two because my role is to fix it. I'm gonna be the fixer, and I would have maneuvered my way, manipulated my way into that conversation to try to mend it and get it fixed. And my my firstborn daughter probably would have put me in my place, then my feelings would have been hurt, it would have been all kinds of drama. But instead, because I'd done some Enneagram work, it was like I'm doing the dishes. I'm going, okay, is this mine to do? No. Have they asked me? No. Stay in your lane, stay in your lane. And just this thought of pray. And I thought, wow, there's a novel approach instead of me just pixit mode. I just prayed. God help them get through this that it doesn't cause harm. And they did. And I think part of it is they respect the difference in the way God wired them, and they're super close. This was kind of early on in the relationship, but I the Enneagram, I think, helped the nine understand that intensity wasn't at her, it was just how an eight communicates. And so I I've I've seen that in different areas to really be very helpful in relationships.

SPEAKER_02: 24:24

It was the perceived need in that situation that you saw maybe they needed some help communicating with each other better?

SPEAKER_00: 24:33

From my pers from what I was looking, yes, probably not as much. Not as much. But again, I I think what if we pay attention to our bodies, I wanted, I got afraid. I got afraid, ooh, family dynamics is going to go sideways. I could call it concern, I could call it a whole lot of things, but I'm finding as I age, most things are based in fear. And we all have a way to then fear comes a little bit of anxiety, and then it can be some kind of control, but it looks different for every number how they are going to do that. So for me, I wanted this to get, I wanted my anxiety inside of me, my fear of this is going to go south, and what do we do? And our family might, you know, implode. Um, I want to go fix it.

SPEAKER_01: 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:35

Instead of giving everybody their own autonomy and giving God room, because twos have a problem with boundaries. We are in people's spaces that we don't belong, and it looks good and it seems good until it's not. So I do think that is the beautiful tool. It helps us name our fears. And if we'll name the fear, and for different people, it would be a nine would be conflict, conflict. I gotta squelch the conflict. And so their anxiety. So what it's on that airplane analogy, put your oxygen mask on first. I had to go inside myself and get calm and ask myself the questions I can ask myself. And then for me as a person of faith, is pray. And God does it way better than we will ever, ever, ever do it. I've had that come back and bite me enough to know, you know, and as much as I know the enneagram, and as much as I have done the work, I can still step out of bounds. I can do it. But I either know it why I'm doing it now or I repair it really fast.

SPEAKER_02: 27:04

Oh, that's really good because knowing why is a thing to help us, you know, recalibrate for next time. Maybe we won't do it again if we understand why. Yes. And then repair, we know that repair is so important in relationships. And the Enneagram, I mean, that can help us repair with people because we might understand more of why their feelings are hurt or why they got upset, right?

SPEAKER_00: 27:31

Yes. Yes. Um, early on in this, another story between me and my daughter-in-law, who's the nine.

SPEAKER_02: 27:42

Yes, tell me all the stories.

SPEAKER_00: 27:45

And so um, she called me, and like, I don't all apologetic that she was calling. And I mean, you don't have to help me, but if you can't help me, but if you don't want to help me, and it's like, what do you need? And it was picking up my grandson from Mother's Day Out, and I'm a pretty fast processor, and nines are very slow processors, and so she was just going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and before the Enneagram, I would have said, Hey, don't worry about it. I'll go pick him up, I'll bring him to my house, then you can come back. And I would have had it all planned out, and she would have been relieved because she wouldn't have had to make a decision, and all would have been well. I knew we were gonna end up with him, me picking him up, but there was something I knew I needed to back out. And what I told her is hey, take a minute, think about it, decide what you want to do, what helps you. I'm I'll just sit in the parking lot. I can either turn right or left, it doesn't matter to me. You decide and call me back. She called me back and went, okay, great. Will you pick them up? Yes. So it slowed the process down by five minutes. But what it really stopped was that pattern of me jumping in, having a solution, figuring out the problem, getting it done, and my Inagram nine daughter-in-law not having to practice, just make the decision. You just gotta make a decision. There's not a right and wrong one here. And eventually I would have been so in her space, she would have felt like I was controlling her. And I would be going, I'm not controlling you. When do I control? You know what I it I could, it's almost like I could see it down the road where it was gonna go. And it was like, slow down, let her, this is her growth path, and mine, not just to jump in, and so that was one of those very pivotal moments where I just thought, Lord, thank you. Um, very, very, very helpful.

SPEAKER_02: 30:12

I love that story, and I love how you said at the end of it, it only was a five-minute difference in reality, but you respected her autonomy, and she made a decision, and you you you made a decision that you knew would be healthier for you. So I want to go back to something that you referenced earlier, okay? You were talking about how our family systems, they're like fixed systems, and they run the same way. They've always run, and we do the same things because we know how it goes. This is how our family does things. And then when somebody marries in, it's like this foreign orbiting entity that that comes in and just is disruptive. So I'd love to hear if you can think of any stories about how you've seen this with your family and your family culture and what it's been like to have s somebody else from the outside come in. Maybe things that that you you guys learn that you didn't realize about your family.

SPEAKER_00: 31:14

I think globally a bigger you just first of all you just feel it. You just feel like oh okay holidays. A lot of people have that very fixed well you have two families who maybe have fixed holidays. And so somebody's got to move and give. Right and I and I think I was around enough young adults that I heard a lot. I heard a lot I feel so much pressure. My mother expects me to be there. My mother expects us to still come and do the matching pajamas and blah um we we don't want to do that and so for me I I said hey we'll do alternative Christmas let me have Thanksgiving just come to my house for Thanksgiving and we'll because it's a four-day holiday people coming in from out of town and then we'll pick some alternative and part of that is having three daughter in laws a lot of times girls are just drawn to their traditions and that's a whole story in our family and we won't get into all that but um their traditions more than sons are most of the time so just respecting that as well um I think it's things like you don't buy a car on you you pay cash and you buy a car that you can afford and you don't do it on credit. Well some people that's how they grew up doing it that way and so I think if we get it in our head of well that's wrong that's not how you were raised we get into a lot of phrases of well that's not what we did when you were young or we did this and you turned out all right and all those phrasologies that come in um it can be do you do Santa Claus do you not do Santa Claus? How do you do the tooth fairy?

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

How do you little things like that and if people had clear ways like this is how it's done and okay we we didn't raise our kids they didn't do Santa Claus that was our choice they married into families that did do it so what am I it's not what are they need to do whatever they're gonna do with that more importantly what am I gonna do with that again it always comes back to the parents they need to build their traditions not on mine not on us they need to build them and what we tell our kids is look how you were raised take whatever you think was good and bring it with you whatever else trash it and the other side the in-laws need to do the same thing so they can form their own family unit their own family traditions um but I think if we stay attached to how I raise my kids is how they're gonna live the rest of their life then our feelings get hurt or I mean it can be church denominations I've seen it all over the place like you weren't raised in that church you were raised in this church why you you know you were sprinkled you were baptized you I it's a myriad of things it I think by the grace of God God I was in the real season of undoing when my kids got um spiritually in a good way when my kids got married and so I was having a I was like letting go of a lot already and that ended up being a gift because if it wasn't I would have been I hate to admit it that hard edge person and I can see how much harm that would have brought if we hold on we're just bringing separation you think about this your fist is closed and I'm holding on but if I let go it's open and it's invitational and is holding on to something worth putting a division between you and your daughter you and your son-in-law you and your daughter-in-law it's not worth it but it's hard but we have to be in a growth mindset at this age and if we're not we get really really fixed and it does a lot of harm I noticed that when you were talking about how you discovered the Ennegram in the first place you said that you immediately knew it was type two you resonated that with that so quickly and my question is do you think that it was easier to to identify your type because you found the Ennegram when you were older I do in a way I I I think back I wish I could you know you could go back in in time I think if I would have taken it younger I don't think I knew myself very well and I spent a lot of time I in my unhealthy eight ish in stress I was very stressed and that's why I said I wonder if I'm an eight and this was very insightful embarrassing at the same time I reconnected with a friend who knew me in my 30s and we were talking about the Enneagram and I she said you're an eight right I said no I'm a two she goes no way and I kind of went ooh but when I think about it that's why you can't judge people by their behavior by their actions because I did have a lot of eight ish going on in my life that time and I also winged very very very unhealthy in a one wing all the un all the unhealthy I was not I was not a healthy person.

SPEAKER_00: 38:01

So if we're not healthy in our number in who we are then we're going to the low side of our wings and we're going to the low side of eight and I was going to the low side of four I was down there. And so I would have thought I'm an eight or one I don't think two would have registered I don't think it would have even registered for me because I would have been looking at my behavior and my behavior looked much more eight and one that was really interesting. Yeah but I've also seen I work with a lot of women and if they I had done work before this I spent nine months at the Alander Center and that will just disrupt your life like none other and so I think I had been on a journey of self-discovery and the Ennegram came at probably about the right time but I do sit with women and it's um I have to really go tell them I give them a list and say now go home and pay attention because look well I don't think I do that and I don't think that's it I don't think that's it um a lot of times it's nines because they are really asleep to themselves and I'll say so go home and pay attention and they come back and they go oh my gosh we're doing this stuff all day long we're just not aware of it. We just autopilot it's autopilot it's habitual and what I try to tell people women just because it feels natural doesn't mean it's healthy. Oh wow that's good and that you know people go oh and I said if it didn't feel natural and healthy a lot of times we wouldn't do it we wouldn't be doing it right we wouldn't do it we don't see our shadow side and I do think some numbers shadow side is harder to see and it's applauded. I think a two and a nine shadow side is very much applauded. Yes come help come help help help help help help help and the nine that peacemaker don't they don't make you know I'm gonna be well thought of and I'm gonna be everybody's friend and I'm gonna well eventually everybody's shadow side comes to bite them eights bite them faster I think one I think one's edge can shut faster um there's some numbers that it just hits harder but we're all doing the same thing um without going into detail I could see one time my son and my daughter in law the one in the nine it was very different but the outcome was the same where indecision or making decisions this is what I want to do and it's about me and this I don't can't make a decision I don't know if I should make a decision both affects other people in ways you can't see the process of it is very different.

SPEAKER_02: 41:27

And that's what if you tell people we're all kind of doing the same thing we're just doing it in different ways for different reasons and that I like I like that and also you referenced this a little bit ago but there's like the Enneagram it's like these maps or like a blueprint where you can see you can see what patterns of action that we take when we're healthy and unhealthy. So you're talking about every number we all have shadow sides no matter if they're easy to see or harder to see or culturally applauded or maybe you're a woman in the church and so your shadow side is applauded.

SPEAKER_00: 42:12

Or you're a woman in the church and you're an eight and that's applauded.

SPEAKER_02: 42:19

No totally like that comes up over and over again right is is women who are eights say wow I had like so many problems with just being told that I'm too much and I can't lead and this and that. And with with um you were talking about how you knew how this interaction between you and your eight daughter and your nine daughter in law was going to end up if you went in and started manipulating and trying to control. And it's because we have like this map, right? For each type it's like this is the map of how your patterns of behavior will come out if you're stressed out and you're on autopilot and you're stressed and you're afraid then these are predictable patterns that we can know and that is the power of Ennegram like we don't have to guess how we're gonna misbehave or how we're gonna act out when we're stressed.

SPEAKER_00: 43:12

Yes. I think understanding what we look like in stress not just the stress and stress number but the stress and security number and that's I just had a client this morning that I walk through what she's a seven and so go into one and going to five in stress and what that looks like and it's like her little brain was oh yeah oh I mean it's you know it but then it's like it gets inside and it just starts naming patterns and you go oh and what I told her is if we can understand in a family unit what people look like under stress so I can say my husband I were married at this point 30 something years whenever the Enneagram started and he's a nine he is the most wholehearted chill like almost annoying how annoyingly calm yes but nines go to six and he had a moment where he had to fire somebody nobody likes to fire anybody but and he kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and he kept saying well I don't want this and I said you're actually self-protection you got to call it what it is and that was very ouchy for him to hear but because he put it off some other dynamics happened and it made it way worse and it really came back and bit him hard um but he just was like I'm gonna get fired I'm gonna get sued I'm gonna like that worst case scenario like a six six go to worst case scenario and he was going down that rabbit hole and I'm thinking what is wrong with you snap at you know I was not compassionate I didn't come alongside I was like you're being stupid you know all the loving and compassionate things well when we learned more about the Enneagram and saw these moves all of a sudden I was like oh my gosh when I hear you talk like that now I know especially for him you are at a level 10 probably stress oh yeah and instead of going quit being stupid what's wrong with you I now can have compassionate wisdom and come and listen to him and like a six no they got to go down and do it all and they'll eventually find their way back up out of that rabbit hole. But really it also helped him now when he hears himself he knows I am in stress about this I'm I'm avoiding this I'm feeling stress and what he told me is it keeps it from waking up in the night and feeling it in his chest.

SPEAKER_02: 46:16

Wow that's life changing absolutely but it's this much of a nuance it's not these what I love about the Ennegram it's not these huge big moves it's just these little moves over time little by little and you get greater understanding you get greater clarity as you go so you're talking about these lists that you give to the women you work with of like go home and notice this so like for let's say a type seven and a type eight one of each what's one thing that you would give them like go home and pay attention and see if you start noticing this well my Enneagram seven I I was she's sevens kind of be so um separated from their body and they're in the anxiety triad and nobody looks at a seven thinks they have anxiety but they have the same low hum of anxiety that the that the six has and that the five has but it doesn't present it and I'm trying to get her to notice pay attention to your body it's there it's telling you things it it's telling you before you react it's telling you something and for seven just to get quiet but also pay attention to her energy when she communicates exuberant loud full of excitement that feels good don't diminish who you are but no your husband doesn't have the bandwidth for that amount of energy so what can you do for me it's journaling to kind of process that idea or the six ideas that the Enneagram has that they're all excited about get some of that energy out before pay it so pay attention how much energy you have how much anxiety you feel toward that you calm it down so when you present it's going to be received a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00: 48:39

And she was like man that's I do that all the time and that's that habitual thing I instead of eight my nine story is um because I have two ennegram nine daughters and we laugh because you go in their house and it's I feel like I walk in a cave oh it's dark no overhead lights on low lights um shades they're it's just not like bright it's very warm and inviting so this isn't like across the board but the Ennegram nines that I've had I said well pay attention when you go home to your lighting they're like what just pay attention do you walk in a room and turn on the overhead light or do you go turn on a lamp how do you like when you're sitting in a room by yourself how do you like how that looks and they were they were they had no idea and they went home and they're like oh my gosh I don't ever have the overhead light on my husband comes in and goes why are you sitting in the dark and she goes it's not dark to me um it just like do you what kind of mood um they're very environmental is very important to them and it's not just quiet it's just a sense of um I I do I just laugh at the the kids walk out at their house and I'm like turning all the lights on I said when you get older you're not gonna be able to sit in so much darkness but because your eyes can't see but it's little things like that um pay attention how many times you think about saying something to your husband but you don't say it because it would take energy and what if this calls conflict so you just don't say it and um I one you know they're in the anger triad and they're probably the hardest ones to identify their anger and on the the sheets that uh it's called the reservoir of anger for the nine and we we went over that and this lady was like I don't think so I don't I don't think so and I said here not everything you read not everything we say you're going to resonate with you you're not gonna go yeah that's me and that's me and that's me pay attention how that shows up for you and she came back she goes I have a reservoir I have funny I was like yeah you do and her husband's like yes you do you've identified your reservoir yeah so I just think it is a level of non-judgmental observation that's all you don't judge it it's neither good nor bad it's neither right or wrong it's just observe yourself and we don't we don't slow down in this time and space to self-reflect and that's what I think the Enneagram really helps you do to stop notice name it we can't change what we don't name so the Enneagram just helps you name these things that's great uh that anger reservoir story was very funny and I love that you're sharing examples of you know there's these things for every single Enneagram type um things that we don't we don't notice because they're natural and it's our autopilot.

SPEAKER_02: 52:44

This has been amazing I wish that I could talk to you for a hundred more hours um but we are going to wrap it up for today but I'd love to do this again sometime row um anytime I'd love so good the Ennegram is not the end all be all but it is a valuable valuable tool to self-discovering self-awareness and it is a wonderful tool to have within a marriage with your children and then with your those that married in and I'm a grandmother I already I mean I have a my daughter's getting to raise her little mini me and but now I know how to interact with that feisty little eight now very differently than what I would have been and my oldest granddaughter's definitely a one definitely a one and wow you know I just want an extra love on that poor little girl who has the inner critic already where you hear it it's already working in her life you know and her parents are aware of it but it's just there and so it it doesn't it helps us it helps us in our marriage it helps us with our children helps when they get married and it helps with the next generation yeah and it's it's awesome it is awesome you are the Ennegram evangelist today for just telling us about how amazing this tool is that's what my husband said do something with you light up every time you talk about it but I think it was so transform transformational for me and I have had enough clients now that I'm just watching light bulb moments marriages being changed um honestly and a lot of times doing the Cinegram work if you'll do it long enough it becomes pretty disruptive in your life and I have referred on clients to counselors because I think it's helped them touch some things that have been buried that need some trauma care that needs something deeper than you know what I'm gonna offer.

SPEAKER_00: 54:57

So it's um it's a beautiful tool for healing. Beautiful any last words about how we can love the Ennegram twos in our families I do think just let them know in ways that you you see them and that you want them in their life not just when they do something not you know invited over to dinner not because they want you to watch the grandkids or invited over to dinner because they want you to help with something um just be with them we love connection we love people but I think if we can have interactions that are not attached to what we're doing it helps us to know and I do think a lot of twos need encouragement to take time for themselves self-care self-care feels so selfish to a two and if you have a husband a good friend people who if they see you out of bounds doing too much to come to a two and say you need to spend some time doing something for yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 56:25

And I'm telling you in the beginning it's like no but we need to can't give out of an empty tank thank you so much for those last words for the twos and for everything that you shared with us today. I'm I think it just makes sense that this is your lane now and this is what gets you going because you're you're really good at it. You're good at explaining and you're good at like articulating what how this tool is helpful and and how it can help us. So I'm I'm really um honored that you took the time to talk to me today.

SPEAKER_00: 57:00

Well and I'm honored that you asked me to be on your podcast thanks a lot thanks Roe